“My guest this week is Albert Wenger, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures and the author of the book World After Capital.

Albert studied economics at Harvard and earned a PhD in information from technology, but if you’d asked me to guess before looking those up, I’d have guessed that he studied philosophy because of how widely he has thought about the world and the impact of technology.

Our conversation is about how technology is changing the world from an Industrial Age to a knowledge age. We explore how cryptocurrencies, low cost computing, and regulation will impact our future and why the transition may require delicate care.”
-So many interesting points to consider
-Freedoms: Economic, Informational, Psychological (Mostly Attention)
-Basic Income, Full Reserve Banking, Financial Economy
–

We Get the Economy We Ask For: Towards a New Distributional Economics – Tim O’Reilly

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Skin in the Game, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in the book. This is the third episode of EconTalk with Taleb related to the general topic of skin in the game and how it affects decision-making and policy in an uncertain world. This episode focuses on rationality, religion, and the challenge of thinking about probability and risk correctly in a dynamic world.

Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews writer and media strategist Ryan Holiday. Holiday was 19 years old when he dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of “The 48 Laws of Power.” He went on to become the director of marketing for American Apparel. His creative agency, Brass Check, has advised clients like Google, TASER and Complex, as well as many prominent bestselling authors, including Neil Strauss, Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss. He is the author of six books, including “The Daily Stoic” and most recently “Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue.”

Jim Grant: The great Bond BEAR Market has already begun! – MacroVoices
Erik Townsend welcomes Jim Grant to MacroVoices. Erik and Jim discuss new Fed governor Powell, treasury yields and how far the FED go before something breaks. They discuss his outlook on inflation, gold, junk bonds, China and the drivers of long term debt cycles. They reflect on History and what happened when the FED did not bail out the banks in 1920 and considerations on what actions the US government can take to deal with the debt.

Ray Dalio on How the Economic Machine Works (A stylized look at the Economic/Debt Cycle): A good review considering the state of the Canadian Economy

The Autonomy Ecosystem: Where and How It Begins (1 of 8) – a16z (Self Driving Cars and their potential effects on society). Be sure to watch all 8!

Beyond 2018 Dr Michio Kaku on the Future in the Next 5 10 20 Years

Sebastian Junger (author of Tribe) on @joerogan via @sspencer_smb

Notes:
The thing about technology is that it buffers us from consequences in the real world…..they need each other less and less to survive…..don’t need your neighbors….it all gets taken care of….deprives you of that essential reliance on other people….transition to a world with no community
The problem with the suburbs is …you can be totally isolated.
Choice between community and self sacrifice: Part of a small group trying to survive….
Problem: How can we have the close communal connection that buffers us from mental health problems…and have the benefits of modern society (tehchnology)
People find their own tribes….runners…etc
After 9/11….common goal…ptsd rates went down…. (although I would assume as a result some people have PTSD)
Commentary on mass shootings at 1:48

This is Who You Are Up Against, w/ Josh Wolfe – [Invest Like the Best …
“My guest this week is Josh Wolfe, a founding and managing partner at Lux Capital in New York City. Lux is a venture capital firm, but a highly unique one. They’ve spent more time in hard sciences and interesting nooks and crannies of the market than the typical VC firm.”
Josh Wolfe – Notes
Operate, Recruit, Storytell
Marriage of storyteller and executor/operator
Filter wide, funnel high
Biggest mistake: consensus buy and overpay (but try and not to)
Biggest mistake: minority opinion, 1 partner is really passionate about the idea
Devil’s advocate or red corner, explicit better to be implicit
Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure
Risk and Value can only be transformed not destroyed
32:38 – Crazy thesis – understanding the emotional needs of our pets (Animal cognition)China’s potential to pull ahead in healthcare, which Josh recently tweeted about:”China (ethically lax) races ahead with CRISPR (and T-cell infusion) in humans.Odds grow that the US (ethically cautious) will IMPORT our most important life saving drugs from China. May give new meaning to ‘made in China’”
Watch out for: bad unit economics, promotional (double edged sword, can lower cost of capital as well)
From Competitive advantage (Tech, scale,etc) flows good unit economics

Patagonia: Yvon Chouinard – How I Built This
“Patagonia. In 1973, Yvon Chouinard started the company to make climbing gear he couldn’t find elsewhere. Over decades of growth, he has implemented a unique philosophy about business, leadership and profit.”

Robotics, automation, and AI are reshaping the world around us in profound ways, affecting everything from financial market trading, to inflation, to factory floors and worker pay. In part 1 of today’s Big Picture segment, Jim Puplava discusses the technological revolution underway and what this means for the future of our economy and the society at large.

The need to explore is a fundamental driver of human progress. Without it, we would never have ventured off the plains of Africa, conquered the seas, or landed men on the moon. How has humanity managed to navigate the unknown? The process of exploration is one of mapmaking. Maps are not some relics of a bygone era. Maps are not artifacts that exist naturally in the world. Maps are products of the human mind. Mapmaking is the process through which our brains structure time and space; they help us put order around experience. Maps are the expression of human perception. If we want to navigate the world better, and if we want to learn how to predict the future, then we need to build better maps. Tim O’Reilly helps us do just that.

As cars become more like iPhones and less like just, well, cars — everything changes, from data to mapping to interfaces to security and more. How so? Where are we anyway, given all the hype around when self-driving cars will appear everywhere? And where are new opportunities in the space?

This episode of the a16z Podcast, based on a panel discussion from the most recent a16z Summit, features a16z research and deal team head Frank Chen in conversation with various companies doing different things in the autonomous space. Guests include: Taggart Matthiesen, head of product at Lyft, which is developing autonomous car technology; James Wu, CEO and co-founder of DeepMap, which focuses on full-stack HD mapping for autonomy; and Qasar Younis, CEO of Applied Intuition, which provides advance simulation software for autonomy.

In this conversation, we discuss his recent post the three body problem, why growth has been beating value, and why a strategy that he calls profound agnosticism—a take on risk parity—may be the most appropriate investing strategy in what he views as a very uncertain world. We also discuss some of his favorite lessons from the farm.

Adventures in Finance – 51 – Xi’s China: What Next For The Middle Kingdom?
Two great thinkers discussing China
With China’s plenum out of the way, what’s ahead for the Chinese economy? How much influence does the government have, and how successful has the transition to a consumer-based economy been? Finally, what does it all mean for the global growth and inflation outlook? Tian Yang of Variant Perception and Louis Gave of Gavekal weigh in. Plus, in the long/short segment, Grant Williams and Alex Rosenberg trade ICOs, Liberian leadership and lifeguard buffness.

“If reporters are to be the new detectives, and media the modern court, then let there be some rules.

Perhaps journalists should be required to video their interviews with accusers, as is the gold standard for police; the entire interviews can then be posted online, so that viewer/jurors know what questions were asked, and what weren’t, and see for themselves the body language of all.

Perhaps “investigative” journalists should have to take the same courses cops do, in how to interview people without leading them or suggesting the answers they want.

Those are facetious suggestions. Here’s one that isn’t: Reputable news organizations should swear off anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct unless there is a substantial body of evidence and an overwhelming public interest imperative.”

#90 – Dan Rasmussen – “The Crown Jewel of the Alternative Universe is Private Equity” – The Meb Faber show
In Episode 90, we welcome Founder and Portfolio Manager of Verdad, Dan Rasmussen. We start with a brief walk-through of Dan’s background. It involves a Harvard education, a New York Times best-selling book, a stint at Bridgewater, consulting work with Bain, then his own foray into private equity. Turning to investments, Meb lays the groundwork by saying how many people misunderstand the private equity market in general (often confusing it for venture capital). He asks Dan for an overview, then some specifics on the state of the industry today. Dan clarifies that when he references “private equity” (PE), he’s talking about the leveraged buyout industry – think “Barbarians at the Gate.” He tells us that PE has been considered the crown jewel of the alternative world, then provides a wonderful recap of its evolution – how this market outperformed for many years (think Mitt Romney in the 80s, when he was buying businesses for 4-6 times EBIT), yet its outsized returns led to endowments flooding the market with capital ($200 – $300 billion per year, which was close to triple the pre-Global Financial Crisis average), driving up valuations. Today, deals are getting done at valuations that are nowhere near as low as in the early days. And so, the outsized returns simply haven’t existed. Yet that hasn’t stopped institutional investors from believing they will. Dan tells us about a study highlighting by just how much institutional managers believe PE will outperform in coming years…yet according to Dan’s research, their number is way off. Dan then delves into leverage and the value premium, telling us how important this interaction is. He gives us great details on the subject based on a study he was a part of while at Bain Consulting. The takeaway was that roughly 50% of deals done at multiples greater than 10x EBITDA posted 0% returns to investors, net of fees. Meb asks about the response to this from the private equity powers that be… What is their perspective on adding value improvements, enabling a higher price? Dan gives us his thoughts, but the general take is that doing deals at 10x EBITDA is nuts. Next, the guys delve into Dan’s strategy at Verdad. In essence, he’s taking the strategy that made PE so successful in the 80s and applying it to public markets. Specifically, he’s looking for microcap stocks, trading at sub-7 EBITDAs, that are 50%-60% levered. With this composition, this m

Hiring the Best People – Harvard Business Review
Patty McCord, Netflix’s former Chief Talent Officer, sees hiring as constant matchmaking. Building a team of people that gets amazing work done, she says, requires managers to really know what they need, and for HR to actually understand the workings of the business. She says money should not be the reason someone leaves and that we should stop using words like “poaching” and “firing.” McCord is the author of “How to Hire,” in the January–February 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

The Art of Tracking, with Boyd Varty – [Invest Like the Best, EP.32]
This week’s episode is the most unique to date. My guest is Boyd Varty, who grew up in the South African Bush, living among and tracking wild leopards. The main theme of our conversation is tracking, and how the same strategy for pursuing animals in the wild can be applied to all aspects of our lives. Boyd’s family has been tracking animals for four generations, and he is bringing what they have learned to a larger audience around the world.

#109 — Biology and Culture: Sam Harris
“In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Bret Weinstein about the moral panic at Evergreen State College, the concept of race, genetic differences between human populations, intersectionality, sex and gender, “metaphorical truth,” religion and “group selection,” equality, and other topics.
Bret Weinstein has spent two decades advancing the field of evolutionary biology. He has made important discoveries regarding the evolution of cancer, senescence, and the adaptive significance of moral self-sacrifice. He is currently working to uncover the evolutionary meaning of large-scale patterns in human history, and applying evolutionary insight in the quest to prototype a liberating, sustainable anti-fragile governance structure for humanity’s next phase.”

Creative Investing, with CoVenture’s Ali Hamed – [Invest Like the Best, EP.71]
The conversation, with a 26-year old investor named Ali Hamed, serves as an example of what’s possible when you think creatively.
Ali views the world with a fresh set of eyes, and has already become an expert at identifying new investment opportunities where others have not. As the second prodigy 26 year old in as many weeks on the podcast, these young guns are making me feel like an ancient 32 year old.
We talk a lot about “alpha” in our world, earning returns better than the market. But the key word in that last sentence isn’t alpha, it’s earning. Hopefully you, like me, will use this conversation as a reminder of what it takes to earn differentiated returns. It’s not just the hard work, but also the mindset. We explore many examples of how to create new investment opportunities, from rolling up Instagram accounts, to financing perishable fruit like watermelons, to heavy machinery software.

Ep.28: Industrial Society and Its Future | Machine Intelligence, Encryption, and the Will to Power
In this episode of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas lays out his vision for a possible future driven by the emergent forces we have been covering in 2017. He reads passages from Ted Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and its Future,” as well as from Bill Joy’s “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” He plays clips from interviews with Barack Obama, Tim Cook, and Jamie Dimon, as he considers how power, privacy, and control, all factor into the emerging technological landscape.
What is the goal we seek to attain with our technologies? What are the benefits and the costs associated with allowing the technological, political, and economic forces of the modern age to continue unabated?

Ten years into the smartphone experiment, we may be reaching a tipping point. Buoyed by mounting evidence and a growing chorus of tech-world jeremiahs, smartphone users are beginning to recognize the downside of the convenient little mini-computer we keep pressed against our thigh or cradled in our palm, not to mention buzzing on our bedside table while we sleep.

The 3 Tricks That Made AlphaGo Zero Work
There were many advances in Deep Learning and AI in 2017, but few generated as much publicity and interest as DeepMind’s AlphaGo Zero. This program was truly a shocking breakthrough: not only did it beat the prior version of AlphaGo — the program that beat 17 time world champion Lee Sedol just a year and a half earlier — 100–0, it was trained without any data from real human games. Xavier Amatrain called it “more [significant] than anything…in the last 5 years” in Machine Learning.

I used the principle of reading in parallel to look at some recent popular health books. I’m finally getting around to typing up the notes, since its the new year! I used a similar approach as Brett describes below:

“Reading for information is a bit different than reading for fresh thinking. Often, when we read a book, we simply absorb the ideas of the author. When we read for fresh thinking, we actively play with those ideas and create new ones.

An exercise I’ve mentioned in the past–and that I’ve used in writing my books–is reading in parallel. Select a topic of interest and then purchase at least four highly rated, well-reviewed books related to that topic. Skim each book in advance and mark off the sections most relevant to your selected topic. Then take turns reading from those sections of each of the books, freely moving from an idea in one of the books to related ideas from the other books. So, for example, I might read four books on creativity, but will read the sections on “problem finding” (how to arrive at worthwhile questions to ask) from each of the books. Then I might read the sections on brainstorming from each of the books.

Rarely will I get through every section of every book. The idea is to create a kind of dialogue among the authors, identifying points of overlap and difference. Very often, the ideas from one book will trigger ideas that have you scouring the other books for elaboration. The mixture of ideas from several books will lead to a thought that is not contained in any of the books. When you read in parallel, it’s like being in the room while the authors are conversing. The intersecting of ideas almost always stimulates fresh ways of thinking about (and applying) the topic at hand.”

Update: This is not the only health/diet/nutrition review so i’ll add some interesting links from my previous research

People have the tendency to cluster around ideas as if they were tangible things and hold on for dear life. When we find something we like, or something that makes sense, like religion or a political stance or a diet, roots are planted and – for most of us – they are permanent. They’re permanent mainly because it’s easier that way. It takes less work to blindly cling to dogma. It’s hard (and humbling) to reevaluate an entire belief system and start over. We prefer the path of least resistance, and we’d simply rather not think too hard. Once the roots of a dogmatic belief find purchase in the hard packed earth of the lazy mind, they’re staying put.

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html
Everyone who learns about nutrition through the usual channels, be it fitness magazines, mainstream diet books and forums, gets cursed with the prevailing belief system of what constitutes a good diet.
Though specific dietary recommendations vary slightly depending on who you listen to, there are many common denominators and “rules” that you are told you must adhere to. Call it broscience, incompetence or ignorance, same thing. We’ve all been there and we’ve all followed these rules. Led like sheep, not knowing better. Trusting that those we listen to knew what they were talking about. While these dietary myths run rampant in the bodybuilding and fitness community, you’ll find that many are being endlessly propagated in the mainstream as well.
Upon closer scrutiny, the great majority lack scientific basis. They are born out out of half-truths, faulty conclusions drawn from poorly conducted studies or created when a study gets cited out of context.

Plant Paradox by Dr Gundry
-Microbiome restoration/gut bacteria replenishing focused diet with some Keto, more fringe
-Claims to help with autoimmune diseases
-Eliminate lectins
-analogy: fix the ecoyssytem by pluggin holes instead of pouring in good nutrients that leak out
-Olive oil: use plants as delivery mechanism
-Only eat high quality meats/animal products: reduce steroids/antibiotics/lectin accumulation in tissues. Pastured chicken, wild fish in limited amounts
-Eat foods high in Resistant Starches: before this book I had not heard of these starches which convert to oils in a health gut
-We’ve evolved mechanisms to prepare foods in certain ways to reduce lectins in our diet: use a pressure cooker
-Has a lot of good points about how our food supply is manipulated: roundup pesticide on wheat to harvest more easily, then not washed off when given to animals as feed
-Whole grains worse than unprocessed because they contain more lectins,
-GMO increases planet resistance to bugs and to the human microbiome
-Very selective in plants (no nightshades,beans,legumes), almost no fruits (just avacado)
-Lots of toxin’s in the environment: carbon paper
-He seems to be light on published research, heavy on promoting supplements
-Glucosamine may bind to lectin’s and reduce inflammation through that path
Critiques:http://nutritionstudies.org/the-plant-paradox-by-steven-grundy-md-commentary/https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/6u37ic/factchecking_review_of_the_plant_paradox_the/http://nutritionstudies.org/the-plant-paradox-by-steven-grundy-md-commentary/

More Tim O’Reilly for you….
Narrative as Destiny: Steering Markets and Innovation to Serve Society

Tim O’Reilly, founder and publisher of O’Reilly Media, technology thought leader, and investor known to many as the “conscience of Silicon Valley,” brings a lens of storyteller to explore the role of technology and economics in today’s marketplace. In his many-worlds approach to the innovation multiverse, it is not simply technology that determines our future; the stories we tell about those developments also shape our destiny. Discussing his new book, WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up To Us, and asking the essential question, “Who gets what and why?” O’Reilly looks at such fundamental issues as whether our basic model of growth in the old capitalist economy is the best one for society, and what the changing nature of tech platforms could mean for consumers and the economy if we had more wisdom to steer it.

A Decade of Stagnation, Why?
PANEL DISCUSSION at Reawakening
What explains the slow recovery from the financial crisis and great recession in so much of the world?

Some great ideas here:
– The nature of bank lending, interaction with real estate, Positional goods, Ecological limits, Decline of leisure time, Inequality

Roger McNamee is one of the most successful technology investors of all time. While running the T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund, and generating a 17% compound average growth rate in the process, Roger made the unheard of move of committing capital, as a mutual fund manager, to venture investments in Electronic Arts and Sybase. From there, he started the industry’s first crossover fund with John Doer, investing in both late-stage venture capital and public market securities. In March of 2000, he co-founded private equity firm Silver Lake Partners in anticipation of the tech bust and, in 2004, founded Elevation Partners where he would become one of the first investors in Facebook and other nascent tech stars. In this episode, Roger shares what made him so successful as an investor, how music saved his life and why he has shifted his focus today from investing in tech to warning of the rising risks tech giants present to democracy and society.